Installation – DAP Documentation

What “Free Installation” Means

As a courtesy to our customers, we offer a free installation service, where we will install DAP on your site for free. And we can do your free installation within 24 hours of your purchase.

However, many people are confused by what “Free Installation” really means. So this article is to give you more details about that.

Installation vs. Setup

To give you a real-world example, think of “DAP Installation” similar to “Delivering the boxed TV set to your doorstep”. That’s it!

We won’t take it out of the box, hook it up to your cable box, set up your channels, set up your DVR, hook up your game console, DVD player, Roku box, etc. All of those things fall under “Setup & Configuration”.

So if you want our help setting up your DAP site, then check out our “Membership Site In A Box” package that comes with “Concierge” sessions to help you set it all up.

What Free Installation Includes

We will upload all DAP files to your server
We will activate the dap plugin on one WordPress blog (the DAP-WP-LiveLinks plugin)
Activating this plugin will create all of the dap tables in your WordPress database
We will setup the Cron job(s) for you within your web hosting cPanel.
If we see any hosting related configuration or installation issues, we will do our best to resolve them, if they are even resolvable (99% of the time, they are).
We will then send you your new DAP Admin Email id and Password via the same support ticket you opened for installation.

That’s it. There’s nothing else involved in the free installation that we perform.

What Free Installation DOES NOT Include

Installation or setup or configuration of your theme (like OptimizePress or Thesis)
Installation, setup or configuration of other plugins
Troubleshooting of your current WordPress installations
Troubleshooting issues with any previous membership plugins that you may be using
Doing an “Overview” of your web site and giving you ideas about what can or cannot be done using DAP
etc… etc… but you get the idea 🙂

Hope this helps clarify what you’re getting as part of your purchase.

Please remember that get get only one free installation, regardless of which license you buy. Additional installations may be purchased at http://DigitalAccessPass.com/buynow.php#installation

If you want us to do it all for you, then check out our “Membership Site In A Box” package that comes with “Concierge” sessions to help you set it all up.

To get your first free installation, click here.

Your Host Does Not Support Cron Jobs

Question: You ask what to do if your host does not support cron jobs?

Short answer: You may want to switch your hosting company.

The basic idea of a cron jobs is that it allows you to run scheduled tasks, that run automatically, frequently, silently, in the background, without requiring manual intervention.

DAP uses cron jobs to do things like…

Send out autoresponder emails
Send out broadcast emails
Manage your outgoing queue of emails so that you can stay within your cheap web host’s strict hourly email sending limits
Process and manage affiliate data & commissions , and
Do some clean up jobs

Any membership plugin that offers email broadcasts, autoresponders and other bulk tasks, will likely ask you to set up cron jobs for sending out emails. You couldn’t possibly send out an email blast to even 500 members in real time as your browser will timeout.

DAP requires you to set up a cron job to do all of the tasks above.

If yours doesn’t, seriously you have only 2 choices…

Stick to your host but lose the ability to use powerful scripts like DAP.
Or do the smart thing and move to a better host. There are plenty of good ones out there, and there are a few we recommend highly, and they’re very inexpensive.

Moving DAP From One Host (or Domain) To Another

NOTE: We do not provide support for server or domain moves as part of Standard DAP Support that you get with your purchase of DAP. Please see our Terms Of Support which explains why. If you want our help with moving a DAP installation, you may purchase Premium Support slots from http://DigitalAccessPass.com/buynow.php#store (see “Installations & Support” tab)

Moving a DAP installation

DAP does not store the domain name anywhere in the database. So if you want to move an existing installation to a new domain, the only place where you need to change your domain name in the DAP installation (if you’re moving across domains) is in the dap-config.php file.

Moving a DAP installation consists of basically moving the files, and moving the database. Only 2 components.

Log in to your web hosting control panel, go to “phpMyAdmin”, select your WordPress database (which is where the DAP tables are also installed, by default)
Do an “Export” of just the DAP tables. Select the “SQL” option and select “Save as File”. All DAP database tables start with the text “dap_”. Save this file on your desktop – let’s say you call it “dapexport.sql” (it could also be “dapexport.txt” – does not matter what the exact extension is – .txt or .sql).
Make a back up of the dap-config.php file (located in the “dap” directory on your old site/domain) on your desktop
At your new site, install WordPress (if not already installed)
Log in to your web hosting control panel of your new site, go to “phpMyAdmin”, select your WordPress database, go to the “SQL” tab, open the export file from above (dapexport.sql), copy the contents, paste into the SQL tab and hit “Go”. All dap data from your old site is now on your new site.
Copy the database credentials (db name, db username, dp password and db host) from your new blog’s “wp-config.php” to the “dap-config.php” file stored on your desktop.
If you’re also changing domain names, then open dap-config.php, and modify SITE_URL_DAP to point to your new domain name.
Upload all dap files to your new site (don’t do full installation – just upload the files).
Upload the DAP-WP-LiveLinks folder to wp-content/plugins/
Upload the modified dap-config.php file from your desktop to the “dap” folder on your new site.
Log in as WP admin, and activate the DAP-WP-LiveLinks plugin. It should give you a warning that DAP is already installed. That’s ok – that’s what we want it to say.
That’s it. DAP is now moved over from your old site to your new site.
Log into your DAP Dashboard using your old DAP admin login info, and you’re all set.

Minimum Requirements To Run DAP

Minimum Basic Requirements

Your own domain name (example.com)
Your own web hosting account

Minimum Web Hosting Requirements

PHP version 5.6.x+
MySQL 5+
PDO for MySQL
JSON support
MBSTRING support
FOPEN/CURL support
Ability to run CRON JOBS (scheduled jobs – very useful for sending out autoresponder & broadcast emails, managing the affiliate program and processing affiliate commissions)
Some flavor of Unix server operating system (eg., Linux)
Apache web server
Support for PHP Sessions

Just copy/paste the above list, or the link to this page, which is…

http://DigitalAccessPass.com/documentation/?page=/doc/minimum-requirements-to-run-dap/

…into a support ticket with your web host, and ask them to confirm if they support all of the above.

Please note that as a DAP user, you don’t have to know what any of this means. These are commonly available on almost all decent web hosts.

Also, if your current host does not have any of these features, we’ve seen that most web hosts enable these for your web site by request, at no additional cost.

So please check with your web host. If they can’t help, then here are a couple of recommended, DAP-Certified web hosts.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

DAP does not work on WordPress.com. You must install WordPress (downloaded from WordPress.org) on your own domain on your own web hosting account. Most web hosts have a 1-click option in their control panel (or cPanel) to install WordPress on your site. That’s the one DAP will work with. The web site that you get for free at WordPress.com, will not allow installation of 3rd party plugins like DAP. So you must have your own hosting account at a web host like liquid web. See our recommendations for web hosts.

Windows vs. Linux

DAP works right out of the box, flawlessly, on all flavors of Unix/Linux. But when it comes to Windows servers, while DAP has been found to work on some installations, it all depends on the kind of Windows setup. We have spent way too much time troubleshooting Windows installations, so we do not recommend Windows-based servers. If you must use DAP on a Windows-based server, unfortunately, you’re on your own. We’re unable to support such installations.

DAP Certified Web Hosts

Last updated: 12/01/2019

DAP works off-the-shelf on almost all web hosts.

But as in any industry, some hosts are just outdated, some run old and outdated software, or do not offer a choice to upgrade to the latest server software (like a recent version of PHP or MySQL). Some are just not helpful at all. And some just don’t have a clue!

So, if you had the choice of picking a new web host, then here are the web hosts we use ourselves, and highly recommend, and they have everything readily available that DAP needs to run smoothly.

Recommended Web Hosts

1) LiquidWeb

2) SiteGround

VPS Hosting

If keeping your site(s) running almost all the time, and having insanely great support from your web host, are both important to you, then you should go with a VPS server from LiquidWeb or SiteGround. For about $50 a month, you can get yourself a great server, with terrific up-time and support. And did we say support is crazy good?

Shared Hosting

If you can’t afford the $50 a month for a VPS server, or don’t (yet) see the value of high site availability and great support, then the next best option is shared hosting, where you share a server with other business owners. Not all shared hosts are made equal. And that’s why we still recommend Siteground as our #1 choice for shared hosting as well.

Managed WordPress Hosting

DAP also works on “Managed WordPress Hosting” accounts like WP Engine, nexcess.net, etc. You’ll have to work with the hosting team to help you setup DAP hourly cron.

Hosts Not Recommended

DAP works fine on all of the following web hosts – unless we specifically mention that it won’t.

But just because DAP works fine on these hosts, doesn’t mean their service or support is good enough for the long term.

So if you are already hosting with one of these hosts below, then you already know how well they work (or don’t), but if you’re happy with them, then there’s no further issue.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is great for registering your domain names. For hosting? Not so much.

We do have a large number of DAP users who use Godaddy for hosting, and they all either totally love it, or hate it. More hate it than love it. No middle ground.

We’ve ourselves have witnessed many issues with some GoDaddy-hosted sites. Their email systems don’t always work consistently on all servers. It works great for some, while some of our other users have reported that even simple admin notification emails from DAP don’t get sent correctly. To compound the issue, Godaddy queues up even real-time emails on their end, and only send them out as batches. Which means even instant “Thank You” emails sent to your buyers with their membership login info, may not get sent for a couple of hours, even though DAP has actually sent them out, but are being intercepted and put on a queue by Godaddy to be sent out “later” in a “batch”.

And then there are the random blank pages and “internal server errors” (500 error). If you search Google for “Godaddy internal server error”, you will see enough folks to form a small nation, complaining about it. And most them aren’t even using DAP (we wish!).

1and1.com

These guys are still stuck in the 90’s, and provide you with some really primitive admin tools.

For instance, the process for setting up a cron job on 99.99% of the other hosts takes about 2 minutes, because it’s point-and-click-and-type. On 1and1, if you see the tutorial they’ve provided ( http://faq.1and1.com/scripting_languages_supported/cron_jobs/3.html ), they’ve made it very complicated, that it would take us too much time just to setup a simple cron job!

And spending 20 minutes for something that normally takes 2 minutes on other hosts, is simply not worth our time. So if you’re on 1and1, we won’t be able to set up cron jobs for you for free. We would have to charge you to set it up for you, so just be aware of that.

And for some reason, their servers always seem to give us a lot of grief with installation & support. So we do not recommend them.

Windows-based hosts

Make sure your server is running some for of Unix (Linux/BSD/etc). DAP and WickedCoolPlugins.com plugins do not work well on Windows-hosted servers. Please see this post for more details.

What Does It Mean If Your Host Is Not Listed Here?

If your host is not shown here, then don’t worry – it doesn’t necessarily mean that DAP won’t work on your host. DAP works well on most hosting platforms.

We just recommend that we use ourselves or have done countless installations on, for our DAP users, and highly recommend (or recommend against, in some cases) if you have the option of picking a new web host.

This is exactly why we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee when you purchase DAP – so that you can make sure DAP can run on your current web site, and also help you decide if DAP will work for you.

So there’s no risk to you, regardless of who you are hosting with.

Disclaimer: We only recommend products and services that we absolutely love and believe in. When recommending such third-party products or services, we may sometimes use affiliate links, which means if you go on to purchase the product or service recommended, we may earn a commission from those purchases.

Free And Paid Installations

How to get DAP installed

NOTE:

Please DO NOT email us this information. You must open a support ticket for this.
We also offer free installation as a one-time courtesy service to all new, first-time buyers of DAP – to help you get started with DAP quickly.
If you are a DAP Elite or Platinum member, all installations & upgrades are free. Otherwise, the first installation is free but subsequent installations and upgrades are not free if you want us to install or upgrade DAP for you (but is free if you do it yourself).
Same information below is required for paid installations & upgrades too

Installation Details

First, go to https://www.DigitalAccessPass.com/support/

Then, open a new ticket, and enter the information below into the ticket – after filling in the blanks, of course.

Your Email Id Used During Purchase: __________
Domain name: __________
FTP Host name: __________
FTP Username: __________
FTP Password: __________

Link to Your WordPress Blog: __________
WordPress Admin Username: __________
WordPress Admin Password: __________

Which one of these Payment Processors do you wish to use to accept payments for your membership site?
(Paypal/1Shoppingcart/ClickBank/etc): ______________

Web Site Control Panel Info (to create cron jobs):
Control Panel Link: __________
Username: __________
Password __________

DAP Installation

UPDATE: Use the new DAP Easy Installer plugin to install DAP, and skip the old method below.
__________________________________

Old Way of Installing DAP

1. Download & Unzip Files

Download the following 2 files…

a) dap_vXX.zip

b) DAP-WP-Livelinks_vYY.zip

XX and YY are version numbers. Unzip the two zip files (separately) to your desktop. You should see 2 folders named dap and DAP-WP-LiveLinks.

WARNING: After you unzip the folders, you should NOT see a “dap” folder within the “dap” folder, or a “DAP-WP-LiveLinks” folder within the “DAP-WP-LiveLinks” folder. If you do, then in both cases, it is the inside “dap” folder or the inside “DAP-WP-LiveLinks” folder that’s important. Get rid of the outer one, and upload only the inner “dap” folder and the innert “DAP-WP-LiveLinks” folder, as explained below.

2. Upload Files

a) Upload the entire dap folder on your computer, to the root of your domain. The root directory is where your domain’s home page is usually located. This directory also goes by the name “public_html” or “www” or “htdocs”.

WARNING – Add-On Domains: If you have a hosting account with multiple domains, and you are trying to install DAP on the “main domain”, then upload the “dap” folder directly to the root of the main domain (like public_html). But if you wish to install DAP on an “add-on domain”, then the “dap” folder has to go into the root of the add-on domain (like public_html/addOnDomain.com)

WARNING: You may not rename the dap folder to anything else. The name of the folder MUST be dap, and regardless of where your blog is (in the main folder, or in a sub-folder), the dap folder must be in your root directory. Once this is done, the dap folder should be accessible by at http://www.Example.com/dap/ – but wait – don’t visit that link yet.

b) Upload the entire DAP-WP-LiveLinks folder (including the folder too) to your WordPress plugins directory, which is wp-content/plugins/

3. Activate Plugin

Log in as WordPress admin, go to the “Plugins” page, and activate the DAP-WP-LiveLinks plugin. Just activating the plugin installs the DAP tables in the same database as your WordPress blog. If there are any errors, you will see them on your screen. If not, you will see a message that says that installation is complete, with just one final step remaining (see below). You will also see the email and password for the DAP Admin account that has just been created for you. There is no need to log in separately to the DAP Admin Control Panel, as you have already been logged in as DAP admin during the installation. But save this DAP admin login info for future reference.

4. Permalinks Update (final step)

Within the WordPress admin control panel, go to “Settings > Permalinks”. Under the section “Customize Permalink Structure”, pick any option other than “Default“. IMPORTANT: Regardless of whether you made any changes on this Permalinks page or not, you MUST click on “Save Changes”. REPEAT: Don’t forget to click on “Save Changes” whether you changed the permalink structure or not.

5. Access DAP

You will now see a new link on your WordPress Admin Menu (bottom left, below “Settings”) called “DigitalAccessPass”. Click on that link to access your DigitalAccessPass Admin Control Panel.

6. Setting Up Cron

This step is not required to just get started with using and learning DAP. But it is required when you are ready to start sending out autoresponder and broadcast emails, or processing affiliate commissions. Also required if you’re doing email-order processing of recurring payments through 1shoppingcart or 1SiteAutomation. It is critical that the cron job(s) is setup before you go live. So click here for the instructions.

DAP-WP-LiveLinks”

Installation / Pre-Installation FAQs

What are the minimum web-hosting requirements to run DAP?

See “Minimum web-hosting requirements”

What web hosts to you recommend?

See “DAP-Certified Web Hosts”

I’m getting an error during installation

See this post for more details about errors .

How can I avail of Free Installation?

See “Free Installation”

How do I setup Cron?

Setting up Cron Jobs

All about Cron Jobs

Your host does not support Cron Jobs

Updating Your Installation

Updating your installation of DAP is very easy.

Download newest version of DAP files (dap_vXX.zip) from your member page
Unzip contents of the file to your desktop (or somewhere on your hard disk)
Overwrite the contents of the dap folder on your web site with the contents of the new dap folder on your desktop
If you’re logged in as DAP Admin, log out
Log in as DAP Admin and follow the instructions on the screen (you’ll be asked to click on a link to start the upgrade).

That’s it!

– Ravi Jayagopal

DAP Installation for Non-WordPress, Plain HTML Web Sites

NOTE: If you are using WordPress, then click here for instructions on how to install DAP as a WordPress Plugin.

This documentation below is only for installing DAP on a Non-WordPress, plain HTML web site.

But you don’t need to be doing this!

Did you know you get free installation along with your purchase of DAP? Yes, even if you are only trying out the free trial and haven’t paid us a dime! 🙂

But for some reason, if you do not wish to take us up on the free offer, and wish to do it yourself, then here are the instructions.

We’ve tried to make DAP installation extremely simple. To do a full installation of DAP (non-WordPress version), it will take about 15-20 minutes.

Uploading the files

Download dap.zip from the members area:

Unzip to your desktop. You should see a folder named dap

Upload the entire dap folder on your computer, to the root of your web site. The root directory is where your web site’s home page is usually located. This directory also goes by the name “public_html” or “www” or “htdocs”.

Once this is done, the dap folder should now be accessible by typing in http://www.Example.com/dap/ – but wait – don’t visit that link yet.

Creating the Database

You will first need to create a database for DAP to use and store its data. So log in to your web host control panel, go to the “MySQL Databases” section, create a new database, then create a new user (with password), then finally make sure you “Add” the newly created database user to the newly created database (to give the user access to create, read, update and delete data from the database).

Note down the new database name, username and password.

Installing DAP

Visit http://YourSite.com/dap/install/

Fill out the form there with the above database details.

Put in “localhost” for the database host name (unless your host has specifically asked you to use something else).

Submit the form.

That should create the dap-config.php file within your dap folder.

And you’ll see a series of messages about how the installation went.

That’s it for the basic DAP installation. You just need to set up the cron jobs to complete installation.

Updating .htaccess File

Add the following text to the .htaccess file in your root directory. [NOTE: If you don’t already have one, then simply copy the .htaccess file from /dap/client/website/ to your root directory]

#Paste this at the very end of your .htaccess file
#in your web site’s root folder

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
#dap
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !dapclient.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/dap/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(.*)(\.php|\.css|\.js|\.jpg|\.gif|\.png|\.txt)$
RewriteRule (.*) /dap/client/website/dapclient.php?dapref=/$1&plug=wp&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !dapclient.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/dap/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(.*)(\.php|\.css|\.js|\.jpg|\.gif|\.png|\.txt)$
RewriteRule (.*) /dap/client/website/dapclient.php?dapref=/$1&plug=wp&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] </IfModule>

Setting Up the Cron Jobs

See this link to set up the cron jobs.